


They Met In The Spring

by Snarkyowl



Series: Mermaid au [1]
Category: Markiplier Egos
Genre: M/M, blood mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 07:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11915901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snarkyowl/pseuds/Snarkyowl
Summary: A man of medicine meets a man of mystery one night in the spring.





	They Met In The Spring

Doctor Edward F. Iplier was a well known doctor among both the merpeople and the humans. He was a man with a foot firmly planted in both worlds, and he was a fool. There was another, like him, who kept up the life of a merman and the life of a human. Both of them were never content with their lives because their choice to switch their identity so often left them too drained to enjoy what they did.

Both were doctors, and both had regrets.

Edward met a strange man on the beach one spring night, just after he’d finished forcing his tail into legs. The residual pain was still echoing aggressively through his joints when he heard a soft voice over the crashing of the waves, and it was a soft voice asking for help.

“The Host believes the man that has just made his way out of the ocean is the man that will be able to help him.” The voice says, and Edward blinks at the appearance of the voice’s owner.

A man, dressed in a beige trench coat stands before him. His hair is pushed back, over his head and out of his face and among dark locks the merman spots a streak of gold. Blonde, perhaps, but in the moonlight it seems golden.

He’s immediately taken with the strange man with the bleeding eyes, and once he notices those he goes into a panicked doctoring mode. The man is lead to Edward’s home, sat on a chair, and the doctor goes to work.

The man, Host as he insists, is grateful for the doctor’s help. As he put it, the salty air and sand were agitating his injuries and he’d long since lost the supplies he needed to bandage and clean them.

Edward doesn’t know why he offers to let the man stay in his home, he just does. The man seems worried, mentions there isn’t a lot of space. Edward’s laugh is bitter as he shakes his head, turning to put his medical supplies away.

“I’m never home anyways, might as well put the thing to some good use.”

He doesn’t expect Host to reply, but then the man does.

“The Host would like to ask, if he’s able, why the doctor is not home?”  
“Well don’t you know?” Edward snorts, though it’s not accusing.

“I’m a doctor, not a homely man. I work and I work, and I have no time to sit at home and sew.” Oh, he does sound bitter now.

He clears his throat, shutting his kit with a satisfying snap.

“I keep myself too busy, so I’m never here.” He rephrases, and surprisingly Host looks unaffected by his bitterness.

They end up getting along remarkably well. Everytime Edward breaks off into bitter anger, Host patiently allows him to rant and ramble before implementing a calmer input that opens the doctor’s eyes to new solutions. The doctor couldn’t help Host quite in the same way, but he was quick to find the man’s eye loss wasn’t accidental. It was done by his own hands, and the tought sickens the doctor.

He learns a lot about the Host over the weeks they live together, and he is quick to learn how to provide Host with comfort. Contact is something the Host is picky about, he finds. Warn him first, never surprise him.

Another thing the doctor learned was that the Host knew the future. He understood the strange ability was much more complicated than that, but the limited understanding is enough to know the Host knows more than he lets on. At least he never says anything about what he’s seen, mostly.

He knows when Edward has lost a patient and provides quiet support, tea made perfectly and stories crafted straight from his mind. Edward finds himself often getting lost in those stories, waking up hours later still curled up to the man who always seems to be wearing his trench coat.

The strange man, Edward finds, is even stranger. He knows a lot about mermaids for someone who claims to have never been in the ocean, and at first Edward feels Host is being careless. Then he realizes Host is helping him along. Host is leaving breadcrumbs on the trail to figuring him out, and Edward realizes alongside that realization he’s in love.

He panics, at first. A man who denies his life as a merman for one reason or another, someone who ripped his own eyes own for reasons he still refuses to tell Edward, someone who wormed his way into Edward’s heart so quickly and so deep the merman doesn’t know what to do.

Someone who disappeared in the dead of night, and didn’t come home.

Edward spent weeks searching under every rock for the mysterious Host, but his work eventually became his excuse for shutting himself in again. He’d been so close to feeling like a real person again, but he should have known.

He doesn’t deserve that, that happiness. He deserves to be cold and alone because that’s what he’s always made himself. He has an odd family he could go to, but he feels he would only be burdening them with his woes. So, instead, when he visits he smiles and gives biting sarcasm out in small doses. He plays normal, he plays perfect, because that’s what he needs to be.

He’s an actor and a doctor, you’ll come to find that doctors are very good actors while actors are not always good doctors.

It’s the spring when he finds the man again, and he finds him in a storm. Standing, alone, facing the ocean as mother nature causes chaos around him. Edward finds it poetic, but the man is gone by the time he has time to try and join him.

Edward doesn’t try searching for the mystery Host again this time, and when Host shows up he’s tempted to ward him off. Sweet words, a gentle touch, and Edward lets him in. He knows, deep down, he’s setting himself up for more pain.

Yet, as he wakes up with a warm body under his head, he can’t bring himself to regret that.

Maybe he just has a penchant for self destruction, but at least he can have fun and do good while he’s at it.

Host leaves after only a week this time, and Edward only cries for a few moments. He gathers himself up, and shoves himself into his work.

He doesn’t expect Host back by summer, but he there he is. This time he’s brought something with him, a picnic basket of all things. Edward wonders if he’s being manipulated into being a safehouse for a murderer, but as Host spins a tale of lands far away with golden hills he forgets his worries.

Host’s leaving and returning is sporadic and continues until one day Edward can’t take it anymore. He’s been alone too long, waiting and expecting and hoping. Right as he lets his hopes fall completely there Host is, smiling that sweet smile of his and using that honey-sweet voice to soothe the wounds.

Honey, Edward finds, is a temporary relief. When he hears the familiar knocking on his door one autumn night, he ignores it. The knocking continues late into the night, keeping him up and haunting him. He refuses to give in, though, and by morning it’s gone.

He thought he’d be satisfied with himself, proud maybe, but no. He’s upset, because he’s a fool, and he’s a fool in love.

Host finds him at the clinic, and simply asks for a checkup. They say nothing, and do nothing for the whole appointment. Finally, as Host goes to leave he turns back to the doctor with his head tilted to the side.

“The Host would like to come over to make the doctor dinner, would this be permissible?”

And goddamn him, there’s that voice again. The one Edward can’t ever deny, the voice that haunts all of his dreams and nightmares.

His voice cracks as he says yes, and he can’t bring himself to face Host even though the other can’t see the tears in his eyes. Why is he so pathetic?

Dark visits him, for once, the following week. The man, monochrome and glowing gently blue and red as he always does in his weaker human form, seems agitated. He enters the house uninvited and helps himself to a glass of water, but finally faces Edward with eyes the doctor is sure are made of ink and ice.

“You’re in love.”  
“I am.”

“You’re in love with the Host.”  
“I am.”  
“You know what he does?”  
“I do.”  
“What he is?”  
“I do.”  
Dark sighs at that, setting his glass down and shaking his head almost sadly. Edward knows from growing up with Dark, though, that his sadness is not sincere.

“He can’t love you, Edward.”  
“I know, Darkiplier. Wilford can’t love you either, but you seem set on keeping him with you.” It’s a low blow, harsh and so much more hurtful than anything Edward would say to anyone else.

Dark just brings out that side in people.

“Watch. Your. Mouth.” Dark snarls, and Edward can’t find the energy to flinch.

They both know, somewhere inside their hearts, that what they’re saying isn’t true. Wilford can love Dark, Host could love Edward. The only problem?

Host and Wilford were nothing special. Not really.

Host was a man set on obtaining his own goals, obsessed with keeping control over everything. Compliance was key, and when you didn’t do what he wanted you were punished. Edward was willing to comply, but everyone has their limits. Host could not be tied down because then he would be less in charge of his life, even if only slightly. Edward knew that now, knew why Host left and came as he pleased. He was establishing that Edward would not rule over what he did, no matter what. Host’s choices, Edward wouldn’t affect them.

Wilford was a man of chaos. A man not to be tied down, and Dark knew this well. Wilford and Dark had grown up together, and all that time Dark had longed for Wilford. Wilford was obliviousness embodied, however, and all he ever seemed to focus on was himself. He was self-centered, carrying an ego to rival that of Dark’s own.

Loving someone who means the world to you, yet to them you’re only something to come home to occasionally was a painful journey.

Yet Dark and Edward would still die should Wilford or Host were to ask them to.

Edward knew why Dark was really here like this. While the sadness in the shake of his head may not have been sincere, the meaning behind this meeting was. He didn’t want Edward to end up like him, but he knew he’d come too late.

He was here to offer comfort.

Edward and Dark spent the weekend out and about as brothers, and it was nice. The weather was perfect, and for once Dark was pleasant through his entire visit. They spent a lunch with Schneeplestein, discussing news from around the town with the other doctor.

Then, Dark left. Back to the ocean, and back to his own pain. Edward was left alone again, but he felt better. If only a little.

Host returned only a month later, one eye infected. Delirious with fever, his narrations turned Edward’s house to chaos. The doctor ran himself into the ground juggling caring for Host and caring for his patients at the clinic.

One day he wakes up and the Host is gone again. He’s not sure what all he breaks, but the glass is everywhere by the end of his outburst.

After making a few arrangements he spends the next six months underwater, the one place he know Host won’t follow.

He’s just emerged from the ocean and pulled his clothes on when he hears that familiar voice, narrating its way down the beach to him. He doesn’t have the strength to run, so he stands still as Host finds him.

A small smile, cheeks painted with blood spilled past the bandages.

“The Host has missed you, doctor.”

Liar. He wants to say. You always say that, yet you always leave anyways don’t you? He wants to yell. Instead he remains silent, jaw clenched. Host lets out a soft huff of amusement, leaning forward.

That day marks the first time Host has kissed him, on the lips, and it’s the same day Host leaves again.

He sees Host briefly in town one day, but he’s quick to bolt to the ocean. His only safe space. He can’t stay underwater forever, though, and he’s never regretted his double life more.

Host tries to kiss him again in the winter. “Mistletoe,” he says despite being blind, “it’s a custom.” Edward moves his head to the side and Host’s lips meet his cheeks. Host frowns, tilts his head to the side like he doesn’t understand the pain he’s caused.

Like he doesn’t know.

“The Host-”  
“I need to go.” Edward says it gently, but with enough urgency he hopes he can convince the man that knows seemingly everything something has happened.

He’s crushed between the rocks in the spring. His torso sways uselessly with the waves, bending him at an odd angle as he remains limp. He was too exhausted to move out of the way in time, and his tail now remains trapped under a pile of rocks. Edward doesn’t have it in him to try and move those to free himself, so he just lets himself bleed.

As the water around him turns red, a figure appears. Familiar and yet not at this angle, and for a while he’s confused. Then there’s green hair and a desperate germanic accent begging him to hang on, he’s almost free.

The colorful tail is another giveaway, once it swings into view. Vibrant blues and greens. So violently in your face it can’t not be Schneep.

Edward is stuck on land to heal, and Host has the nerve to visit him in the hospital. Edward’s empty stare doesn’t affect him as he settles into the seat by the bed, smiling politely before he speaks.

“The Host is the one who alerted Dr. Schneeplestein that you were stuck.” He informs, and he doesn’t sound smug.

Edward still wants to wring his neck, but instead he just idly murmurs his thanks. He’s on pain medication, and that’s his only excuse for why he asks what he does next.

“When are you leaving again?”

The atmosphere of the room turns icy immediately, and the tension feels cuttable. They lapse into silence so long, Edward is afraid Host has just vanished. Now he’s afraid to check, so he just waits. Finally, the Host stands.  
“The Host will be back later.” He says, and it’s the angriest he’s ever been with Edward.

Host was there when Edward is allowed home, explaining to confused staff he’s Edward’s boyfriend.

“Work keeps me busy.”  
He says, and again Edward wants to kill him. Instead, Edward remains silent in his wheelchair. Host pushes him inside with too much ease, knows the house too well, and then situates Edward in the living room.

“What would you like for dinner?”

Less pain both emotional and physical. He considers saying it allowed, to be an ass, but instead Edward takes a breath before answering, “I just want a peanut butter sandwich.”

Host’s face crumbles for a moment, just a moment, before he nods and gives that damned smile again.  
“One peanut butter sandwich.” He states, as though giving Edward another choice.

Edward only hums and falls asleep in his wheelchair no matter how uncomfortable it is.

Host stays until Edward can walk again, and Edward isn’t really shocked. What shocks him is when Host appears, bags in hand and sobbing about that had happened. He refuses to explain, but that day he moves in.

Host is unfairly good at finding his flaws, find the old wounds he had left. He tries to make up for it all, but some things Edwar just can’t forgive.

They fix it, though, together. Soon, Edward’s happy again. Host sees him down to the ocean, they share a goodbye, and Edward leaves to see his patients in the water. He’s the one leaving now, but he’s predictable so Host can’t really complain.

Things are rough at first, but Edward is content even so.  
He has what he’s always wished for, someone to love. Whether or not the Host loves him the same is hard to tell most times, but Edward likes to pretend that’s how it goes. They get closer and closer until one is rarely seen without the other save for Edward’s water trips.

Then, one day, Host proposes. Edward,of course, accepts.  
They marry in the spring, and Edward’s never been happier.


End file.
